


Our Way

by UberNerd



Series: Origins [6]
Category: Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (Cartoon), WALL-E (2008)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Marriage, Romance, Secret Marriage, kind of?, nos is just happy to be alive, robot characters, robot romance, two is ready to throw down
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25979428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UberNerd/pseuds/UberNerd
Summary: Nos and Two are finally headed to Earth.
Relationships: Nos-4-a2/Eve Two
Series: Origins [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760851
Comments: 8
Kudos: 2





	1. Calling Home

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing this in February 2019 in order to have it done by Valentine's Day. 😬 It's probably going to have a few short chapters before the grand finale.

Two hovered, alone, at the ship’s control panel. She and Nos had agreed that she’d have the best chance explaining everything that had happened on her own ‒ not that it would be any easier. Two was still wrapping her mind around it herself, but explaining it to another person? _That_ was a concept all its own.  
  
The video console rang, and part of her hoped that nobody would pick up. It might be one hell of a message to leave, but at least she wouldn’t have to ‒  
  
“ _Two!_ ”  
  
The white probe flinched back at the sudden volume that blasted through the speakers before the video had the chance to connect. Some of her nerves melted into an almost giddy relief as the image resolved, showing her sister. As crazy as this would be... she was talking to _One_. After everything that had happened, no matter how complicated things were, she was calling home with good news for the first time in years.  
  
At least, she would if One let her get a word in.  
  
“ _We got a call from Star Command saying that you were in custody and that you’d been injured and you were being processed in some kind of witness protection and we couldn’t do anything or find out what was going on even though we’re your only contacts and we’ve been looking everywhere for a lawyer but there are all these weird laws for robots and nobody would tell us anything and we thought ‒ !_ ”  
  
“One!” Two laughed, “One, it’s alright! What are you using Phonic for?”  
  
The near-identical probe seemed taken aback, still frantic. “ _I don’t know where you are! I thought you might be calling me from somewhere dangerous, what’s going on?!_ ”  
  
“One, we’re...” Two’s voice wavered. This was really happening. “We’re coming home, One. We’re safe.”  
  
The probe on the other side of the screen stared, frozen. When she spoke again, her processor slipped into quiet, timid English. “You’re coming... here? And you’re...” she blinked, hugging herself, “who’s ‘we?’”  
  
Two felt something swell in her processors. “Me and Nos.” Even saying it out loud was still hard to believe.  
  
“So you? He... Two, what...?” One squinted.  
  
“I was right about him, One, and we proved it,” Two glowed with all the triumph and joy she had in her. “It’s all above-ground, we’re being escorted back by Rangers right now ‒ four in our ship and four following us in a cruiser.”  
  
“Two,” One choked, reaching out as if to touch her through the screen, utter disbelief written in every part of her body language. “You’re really coming back...?” One’s eyeforms flickered. Whatever the meaning of this was, if Two had finally decided to return to Earth... “Does that mean you haven’t found anything?”  
  
Two drew into herself as if One had pulled out her cannon. With all that had been going on, she didn’t think anything could bring her down, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about... that. In fact, she wasn’t sure if it ever left her mind. No matter how she tried to vocalize her thoughts, her speakers dissolved into static until she finally managed a quiet, “I’m ready.”  
  
One folded her hands over her motherboard with a slow nod. “...She’d be so happy to see you home safe, Two.”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
One shook her head, pressing the corner of her visor. “Right, I’m sorry. Will,” her speakers flanged, “will you tell me what happened? We’ve been losing our minds here trying to find out what was going on. What were you doing at Star Command, and why did they call us about an injury?”  
  
Two took a moment to regain her bearings, doing a quick mental check of what she had and hadn’t told her sister. One had technically met Nos, having spoken to him with Wall.E over video calls a handful of times, even giving him a thorough boyfriend interview. Two had waxed poetic about him more than once, but through it all they’d skirted around the magnitude of Nos’s... previous occupation. As far as the Earthclasses knew, Nos was just a petty criminal that Two had started traveling with as a last resort.  
  
“Well,” Two began, “Nos was arrested, and since I was with him... they, uh, thought I was under his control.”  
  
One’s eyeforms flashed. “Is that an Energy Vampire thing?”  
  
“Not an important one. The Rangers separated us and we both told the honest truth, but they didn’t trust him and they didn’t think I was acting on my own will. The way they treat robots out here,” Two rubbed her arm. “It’s really different. Even the robot _Rangers_ dismissed me like I didn’t know what was going on. But they couldn’t completely ignore our argument, that he changed his ways as soon as he rejected his programming. They didn’t have any evidence to prove otherwise, he wasn’t resisting and there hadn’t been any reports in over a year, but they weren’t taking our word for it, either. They wouldn’t let us see each other, but since I never caused any trouble, my security kept getting thinner. One night I managed to sneak out and find the brig, and ‒ and I didn’t know, but somebody followed me, and the way they were keeping Nos...” Two’s voice faltered.  
  
One couldn’t bring herself to do much more than stare in horror. “How did you get out?”  
  
“The Ranger who followed me saw us talking. They’d been starving him, but he practically hid from me, telling me to get away before I got caught, and... well, I hadn’t seen him in weeks, I wouldn’t leave him, so he finally gave in and met me at the bars. We tried to talk about we were going to do if things didn’t go our way, but he was right. I was caught. That Ranger had recorded us though, and that footage was enough to start changing minds in our favor. He had begged me to leave even though he was starving, he valued my safety above all else, and they _had_ to start facing the facts. A small group of Rangers put a case together and found a way to have him protected and relocated, but a lot of people were still against it, so I sort of went berserk. I demanded he be processed like any other creature would have been, used a little leveredge, and now... here we are!”  
  
“Leveredge? What could you have possibly had on them when they treat robots like appliances?” One balked.  
  
Two’s hand moved to her side before she had the chance to think about it. Carefully kept out of the camera’s view, a patch of gray metal interrupted her white polish. “Caught” may have been a bit of an understatement: when Two was spotted at Nos-4-a2’s cell after hours, she was assumed to either be an escapee or someone aiding a breakout ‒ either way, a robot in that position was as good as scrap metal. The patrolling guard shot her clean through before the Ranger who had followed her could do anything about it. In the face of the footage, Two was hastily repaired, coming to life with a vengeance ‒ she would take no more discrimination sitting down, and other robots and sympathisers joined her cause. Team Lightyear’s support was what really tipped the scales, but Two’s own venom in the face of her near-death experience was a force of nature by itself.  
  
...One didn’t need to worry about any of that. “I’m not at liberty to say.”  
  
“What?!”  
  
“It doesn’t matter! Nos and I are going to live on Earth, and...” a thrill warmed Two’s wires, bringing the beginnings of a smile back to her visor. “There’s something else.”  
  
“How?” One blinked, shaking her head.  
  
“So, apparently, Nos had been planning something for a while before we were captured, and as soon as everything was finalized ‒ it was just yesterday, the _second_ we got to see each other again...” Two broke into a glowing smile, gripping her left hand in her right, making sure it still wasn’t on screen. “He took me into the ship and pulled this little box out of the vents, and ‒ and it was all such a rush just to be going to Earth, to be together and not have to hide anything, and he kept stumbling over his words, and I knew it was coming but I had to let him finish, and...” she couldn’t help herself, falling into giddy laughter.  
  
One narrowed her eyeforms. “You don’t mean...?”  
  
Like it had been paining her to keep it down, Two rose her left hand to the camera, showing off an intricately carved ring set with three pale stones. “He proposed!”  
  
The excitement of making the announcement carried Two away, giggles once again wracking her frame. She didn’t notice One’s expression until her voice came through the console. “...Really?”  
  
Two’s smile dimmed as some of her energy burned off. “What’s wrong?”  
  
“It’s amazing that you’re coming home, Two, and we’ve wanted to meet Nos in person from the start, but do you really think this is a good idea?”  
  
Two blinked. “Marrying the love of my life? Yeah, I think it’s a great idea, actually.”  
  
“No, come on, you know what I mean ‒ you just said yourself how emotional this has all been, and this is a really big decision to make on such short notice.”  
  
“Wh... we’ve been together for almost a year!”  
  
“That’s not a long time at all, Two!”  
  
“You and Wall.E got engaged after a _few weeks!_ ”  
  
“ _Wall.E_ was a good person before I met him!”  
  
In the ringing silence that followed, the sisters could do nothing more than fix each other in identical stares. Two’s hand, tightly gripping the top of her arm, began to tremble.  
  
“Two, I didn’t ‒ I know things have changed, but getting married is ‒ ”  
  
“Why are you talking to me like I don’t know? Just because you have some freaky fairytale relationship doesn’t mean you’re the authority on the subject!”  
  
One drew back. “I never said that ‒ I never _implied_ that! I’m worried about _you_ , we haven’t spoken in months, and now that I finally hear from you, you’re dealing with all this terrible stuff and ‒ side note ‒ you’re also getting married?”  
  
“The terrible stuff is over!” Two fumed, “This isn’t about that! I would have proposed to him myself if he hadn’t done it first, but he had a ring and everything!”  
  
“Marriage is more than a _ring._ ”  
  
“I _know_ that!” Two cried, “I’m marrying him because he makes me happy and we want to spend the rest of our lives together ‒ we _deserve_ to spend the rest of our lives together!”  
  
“So why don’t you start by settling on Earth together? There’s no rush to get married, you can take all the time you want to get to know each other then.”  
  
Two scoffed, “What makes you think we don’t know each other? We’ve been living in this stupid ship for _years_ , we’ve done nothing _but_ get to know each other! You have no idea the kinds of things we’ve been through!”  
  
“I don’t _have_ to to know that you should take more time to make this decision with a level head.”  
  
“Why aren’t you happy about this? I wasn’t calling to _consult_ you, One, I’m _telling_ you that we’re getting married!”  
  
“Well I’m _telling_ you it’s not a good idea!”  
  
Two seethed, doing everything she could to not shred her cloak in her hands. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
  
“If that’s what you think, _fine_ ,” One spat, “Just remember when you’ve broken up after he decides being on the right side of the law is too boring, _I’ll_ be the one who knows how to comfort you, not him!”  
  
Two glared so ferociously at the screen, it was a wonder the whole thing didn’t go up in flames. It took a moment for One to realize what she’d said, her eyeforms widening, “Two, wait ‒ ”  
  
Two had already disconnected the call, jamming the button so hard that it didn’t come back up. What now? The silence rang in her processors. This was supposed to be an exciting call, something to bring them together as a family. They were supposed to talk about what it would be like to see each other all the time, she was supposed to ask One to be her matron of honor. What was her problem? Where did she get off insulting Nos like that? Two worked herself into a proper fury, letting out a strangled shout and punching the pilot’s chair as light as she could manage to keep from doing any real damage.  
  
“ _She kinda has a point, you know,_ ” XR’s voice came from the conference room.  
  
Two whipped around, the seams on her right arm glowing, and was halfway over the threshold when Nos rushed to intercept her. “Hey, it’s alright,” he said so that only she could hear him, holding his hands out to block the way.  
  
She glared up at him, snarling, “It’s _not_ alright.”  
  
Nos wordlessly extended a hand. For a minute, Two only stared at it, the injustice of it all still making her head buzz. His optics held a weighted sort of warmth, far too understanding for her taste. How could he take all of this? Still, the lights on her arm began to fade, and she conceded to give him her hand. He gently folded his talons around it, pressing her fingers between his palms. With a sharp shake of her head, she hissed, “Fine. But I’m not going to like it.”  
  
“I’d be far more concerned if you did,” he smiled heavily, taking one hand away to lace their fingers together. “Will you sit with me?”  
  
“...Yeah.”  
  
Nos took her back into the cockpit and slid the door shut behind them.  
  
“ _Hey! Doors have to stay open!_ ” XR called.  
  
A moment of hardness flashed through Nos’s optics before he pulled a deep breath through his ventilation system, sliding it back.  
  
“The bedroom, then?” Two grumbled.  
  
“ _We’d still have to monitor you in there._ ”  
  
Two whipped around again to snap, “Why don’t you just mind your own damn business?”  
  
“ _Hey, I don’t like this any more than you do, sweetheart!_ ”  
  
“Eve, please!” Nos reached out again, “Come on. Just pretend he’s not there.”  
  
“ _I know_ I _am._ ”  
  
Two ached to slam the door, but she settled on clenching her fists. Nos cleared off a stretch of the counter next to the control panel to sit on, and Two swiveled the pilot’s seat to face him before flopping into it.  
  
“...I’m sorry, my love,” he adopted a low tone to keep the conversation as private as possible.  
  
Two was still too worked up to keep her voice down. “Why? None of this is your fault!”  
  
“Some may beg to differ.”  
  
“‘ _Some_ ’ may have no say in the matter!”  
  
Nos let out a long sigh, leaning forward to rest his arms across his “knees.” “Have I told you how much I love your passion?”  
  
Two’s eyeforms drew into thin lines. “Don’t try to distract me.”  
  
“I’m not. I love how much you care, little dove.”  
  
“But?” Two waved him on.  
  
“‘But’ nothing. Your fire is half the reason I fell in love with you in the first place, you never take any of my guff... I only worry about getting between you and your family.”  
  
“Nos, you’re not. Don’t even say that. She’s got her own issues that have nothing to do with you.”  
  
“But if she’s upset about this, maybe it would be best for me to win her over before we go through with it.”  
  
“Nos-4-a2,” Two said seriously, “If she’s decided to have a problem with this, I don’t _want_ her to have any part in it.”  
  
“...But I want you to be close with your family, Eve. What would be the harm in waiting, really? We can just say we’ve decided to put it off.”  
  
Sitting became too much, so Two hovered upright, putting her hands on Nos’s shoulders to look him dead on. “There’s something you need to understand about this, Nos. Family isn’t a right. It’s a privilege. If she really cares, she’ll get her act together on her own. You know what matters here?”  
  
He sat back a bit. “...I might have an idea.”  
  
Two slid her hands up to hold the sides of his face. “Tell me. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?”  
  
Nos leaned into her touch, the lid dropping over his optic. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever been certain of.”  
  
“...I love you, Nos. I _choose_ you. I’m not here for any song and dance, this is _ours._ I don’t need anybody else, I don’t want anybody else. The fact that we’re both alive and safe and have a future together is everything I’ve wanted for the last year, and it’s all I’ll ever need to be happy.”  
  
Nos gazed at her, dumbstruck. Why couldn’t One see _this?_ Two cleared her mind ‒ this wasn’t about One. She leaned her head forward and pressed her visor to his lips, and he kissed her back slowly, melting into her touch and rocking forward when she drew back. He pried his optic open and shook his head in her hands. “I don’t deserve you.”  
  
“Tough,” she mumbled, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks.  
  
He stifled a laugh and sighed. “You’re wonderful.”  
  
“Does that mean we’re still engaged?”  
  
Nos reached up to put his right hand over her left, rubbing her ring. “Of course we are.”  
  
That was all the excuse Two needed to pull him into another kiss. She crossed her arms behind his neck and leaned all her weight into him as he pulled her close, flush to his metal. Soft “I love yous” passed through each lapse in her spark, swirling, thrilling, washing in the tentative acceptance of unbridled joy. _This is what we’ve been waiting for._  
  
“Alright, Mira’s takin’ over ‒ _eyugh,_ ” XR stopped in the hall and Two felt Nos turn to stone around her. There was a long, silent moment before XR’s treads screeched back the way he came. “ _Buzz,_ can we _please_ amend the open doors policy?”  
  
“Maybe you could learn to _knock!_ ” Two shouted over her shoulder.  
  
Nos crumbled, letting her go and covering his face. “Three more weeks. Just three more weeks, we can make it three more weeks...”  
  
“Speak for yourself,” Two straightened her cloak. “Come on. Let’s start looking at real estate or something, give One a real reason to treat me like an irresponsible kid.”  
  
“...Alright,” Nos groaned, “Maybe we should move to the bedroom. At least we can hear people coming that way.”  
  
Two laughed and hooked her arm through his, dragging him off the counter. “Yeah, we definitely won’t be distracted in there.”  
  
“Darling, my goodness...” Nos flushed with static.  
  
“What? We have a lot of research to do!”  
  
The Energy Vampire rolled his optic, still unable to stifle a smile as she dragged him across the ship.


	2. Imaginary Interior Deco

“So... where do we start?”  
  
“You don’t know?”  
  
“How should I? _You’re_ the one who came from Earth.”  
  
Nos and Two had moved to the ship’s bedroom, a small space at the back of the vessel bearing all the same rich, dark colors. What had once been Nos’s coffin was pushed against the wall to the right, now housing a deep mattress dressed with velvety sheets. A long window sat deep in the wall across from the door, creating a shallow bench perfect for curling up against the stars ‒ Nos and Two had spent countless hours there, trading stories and reading in the spare moments they stole while hidden in dead space. The wall to the left held a screen over a silvery desk of bright buttons and controls. The couple sat now in a pair of desk chairs before the screen, their hands clumsily laced together, each waiting for the other to type a query.  
  
“I only ever lived in the Henrys’ spare room, I never went _house-hunting_ or anything...”  
  
“What about job hunting?” Nos recalled, “You worked on that farm, didn’t you?”  
  
“It was the Henrys’ farm. I wasn’t really... cognizant. Not when I was placed with them, anyway, and I was only earning my stay and a small allowance. They were basically raising me.”  
  
“You’ve told me that before, but... truly? You’ve never had a real job?”  
  
Two drew herself up. “It was hard work!”  
  
“Of course! I know that, but you didn’t exactly submit an application or go through an interviewing process.”  
  
Two slouched back into her chair. “Okay, yeah. No.”  
  
They both lapsed into silence for a moment, staring at the blank screen.  
  
“There has to be a place to start,” Two mumbled, picking at Nos’s talons. He didn’t even seem to notice.  
  
“Honestly, love, I don’t have a clue. When you think about it, who would hire me? There are so many limitations on what I can and can’t reveal about myself, and even if there _weren’t_ , it’s not like I have anything to put on a ‒ a _resume_.”  
  
Two stopped her picking to squeeze his hand, looking up to his optics. “Slow down, it’s gonna be okay. Things aren’t all that formal in Axiom, I promise you’ll have your pick of opportunities,” she turned back to the screen, her eyeforms sharpening. “We shouldn’t start with that, anyway. Think simpler. Let’s just... uh... we can look around town, right? We could check out properties around Port City, we don’t even have to look at the prices yet, we just have to _start_.”  
  
“Okay...” he puffed, trying to match her determination. “How?”  
  
Two laughed, rubbing his wrist and leaning over to kiss him before nudging him to the side. He scooted obligingly and gave her room to take charge of the computer. All of Two’s spare time for the last three years had been spent using Nos’s console to tap into galactic informational systems, so accessing Earth’s Internet was a breeze ‒ at least, accessing the portion that had been made available for interstellar use so far.  
  
As soon as they had that starting point, the truth of their situation began to set in, and they couldn’t help themselves ‒ they began to have fun. Two found a map and gave Nos a detailed tour of Port City, far more in depth than in any of the stories she’d told him before. She pointed out the small apartment complex that the Rangers would put them up in if they needed it while they found permanent lodging, then showed him the nature reserve where the _Axiom’s_ dock used to be, the Henrys’ farm, the Earthclass’ home... though that warranted a quick change of subject. They started looking at available properties, and Nos offered stories that might unfold if they lived at one location or another. They began to speculate what would go on day to day, what renovations they could make ‒ for the first time, they let themselves imagine how mundane their lives might be, and it was _thrilling_. Only a month ago, these would have been nothing more than ridiculous daydreams, but now? Working out the details of finding a home became secondary to eager conversations about curtains and gardens and chandeliers.  
  
In no time at all, Two made her way into Nos’s lap, cuddled close in the light of the screen and the future they weaved in pictures. Unchanging streaks of starlight flew past the window, but time went on. The Rangers changed shifts once, twice, then the couple lost count, caught in bouts of laughter, grand visions, and animated stories.  
  
The whole day passed faster than it had any right to pass as far as Two was concerned. Even as they spoke, she could feel the hours wearing on her, her systems setting up diagnostic programs and instrumental recalibration processes to run in sleep mode. Nos could feel it too, but neither of them wanted to admit it. Both of them were so enthralled by their prospective futures that they pressed on until she could only manage to listen, smiling up at Nos with all the warmth in the world through slow blinks.  
  
“We’re going to have a lot of decisions to make,” she murmured, rolling her head back against his chest to look at the screen. A patchwork of windows showed locations throughout the Axiom Colony’s capitol, swatches of color, samples of materials, a chaotic cluster of ideas.  
  
“We’ll have all of it one day, little dove. Even if it takes a thousand years, we’re going to have a perfect home.”  
  
Two closed her eyeforms, whirring as she let a puff of air through her vents. “It’ll be perfect right away. We’re going to have to figure out our budget, though, aren’t we?”  
  
“...Yes,” Nos rested his cheek on her head.  
  
“Ugh,” she ran a hand across her visor, blinking at the lag in her cameras. “But that’s so boring.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it now, darling,” Nos kissed her temple, “We have time, and you need sleep.”  
  
“Psssh. ‘Don’t worry about it...’” she quietly mimicked his accent. As she gathered the nerve to hover out of Nos’s lap, aiming to land in bed, a less exciting facet of their new reality sank in. Nos had been given enough money to keep him off the street of the average planet in the Galactic Alliance ‒ hardly anything, as robots were never given much in these settlements ‒ but neither of them had any idea how strong the Unibuck was in comparison to the generic credit system used on Earth. The day had been fun, but they hadn’t made any real progress... there were probably more expenses ahead of them than either could expect. Two had hovered just inches off his lap when her eyeforms shot open.  
  
Nos stiffened at the sudden jolt of excitement. “What is it?”  
  
“What if we didn’t have a wedding?” Two whispered, so enamored by the thought that her tiredness all but disappeared.  
  
“...Wait,” Nos blinked, “you changed your mind?”  
  
“No, no, of course I still want to get married, but why have a ceremony? We don’t need to spend money on anything fancy, we just need a marriage license ‒ oh my gosh, _Nos!_ ” she grabbed his shoulders.  
  
“Still listening,” he stammered.  
  
“We can get married before we touch down on Earth!”  
  
“Wait ‒ ”  
  
“Quinn!” Two chirped.  
  
A soft tone indicated the system’s attention. “Yes, Miss Two?”  
  
“Would you marry us?”  
  
“Hold on ‒ ” Nos tried to edge in to no effect.  
  
“I was starting to think you’d never ask. I’ve been making plans since ‒ ”  
  
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Nos waved, “Eve, Quinn, let’s do this in a few hours. You need to spend some time offline, my love.”  
  
“But come on, wouldn’t it be _perfect?_ Neither of us want a big party. I just want it to be official, to be able to check off ‘married’ on any paperwork we have to fill out, and to introduce you to everyone we meet as my husband. I know it doesn’t have any bearing on the fact that we’re together, but it’ll... it’ll just _prove_ it, you know?”  
  
“Okay Eve,” the Energy Vampire put his hands over hers, taking them off his shoulders and folding them together. “I understand, and I think it’s a fine idea, but we’re not going to make any decisions right now. Go ahead and lie down, we’ll continue when you wake. Alright?”  
  
Blue static flickered across her visor and she blinked to clear it. “...I’m sure about this, Nos.”  
  
“I know you are,” he leaned forward to kiss her forehead, “You’re _also_ exhausted. Will you sleep on it if I lie down with you?”  
  
Two slowly narrowed her eyeforms. “I’ll sleep on it if _you_ sleep, too.”  
  
“Hm... you drive a hard bargain,” he trailed a hand down the side of her face to hold her cheek. “I can’t promise you more than an hour.”  
  
Two laughed, bumping her forehead against his. “It’s a start. I’m all excited now, though...”  
  
Rolling his optic, he pecked her visor and scooped her into his arms. “You’re barely hanging on, little dove. Just a few hours. Run your diagnostics, then we’ll have a whole day to talk.”  
  
Two grumbled but didn’t resist as he carried her to the mattress and laid down with her still in his arms. It wasn’t so bad... if she had to sleep, at least she could do it while being cuddled.  
  
Two had hardly tucked her head into Nos’s shoulder before her eyeforms blinked off. She really had been doing everything in her power to stay online. Nos took in the way her electrical signature waned from excitement to calm to unconsciousness, marveling at how much she already felt like _home_. How was it possible to feel so strongly for someone? Lying there with her against his chest, hurtling towards the planet where they’d spend the rest of their lives together, uncertain as the path may be... he really _was_ too alert to go into sleep mode. Since he’d promised, he did at least _try_ , but the effort was in vain. Not twenty minutes passed before he reached up, softly rapping his knuckles against the wall to signal Quinn for a power cell.  
  
A thin arm twisted from the ceiling, wrapped around a fist-sized battery. “Thank you,” Nos whispered, doing his best not to shift Two’s position. He drained the cell in one pull before handing it back to be recharged.  
  
“No luck sleeping, sir?” Quinn asked just loud enough to be heard over the ambient thrum of the ship.  
  
“I’m afraid not. Tell me, Quinn... what _would_ it take to have us married before we reach Earth?”  
  
Amusement pulsed through the ship’s systems, and the rest of Two’s “night” passed in hushed conversation.


End file.
